Perhaps there was no demand for ceramic art of a higher order.

At any rate, progress ceases, and while Greece was rising to her grandest efforts, Cyprus, and Phoenicia generally, were content to remain stationary.
Besides their ornamental metallurgy, which has been treated of in a former chapter, the Phoenicians largely employed several metals, especially bronze and copper, in the fabrication of vessels for ordinary use, of implements, arms, toilet articles, furniture, &c.

The vessels include paterae, bowls, jugs, amphorae, and cups;[864] the implements, hatchets, adzes, knives, and sickles;[865] the arms, spearheads, arrowheads, daggers, battle-axes, helmets, and shields;[866] the toilet articles, mirrors, hand-bells, buckles, candlesticks, &c.;[867] the furniture, tall candelabra, tripods, and thrones.[868] The bronze is of an excellent quality, having generally about nine parts of copper to one of tin; and there is reason to believe that by the skilful tempering of the Phoenician metallurgists, it attained a hardness which was not often given it by others.

The Cyprian shields were remarkable.

They were of a round shape, slightly convex, and instead of the ordinary boss, had a long projecting cone in the centre.